Bob Thune: A Few Thoughts About Education

Pastor Bob Thune has some questions for Christians to consider about their involvment in public schools after Obama's decree on transgender bathroom use, as well as the Omaha School Board's decision to teach gender identity, abortion and emergency contraception as part of their mandatory sex-ed curriculum-- a decision no doubt also made by many other school boards across America.

Last week the Obama administration handed down from on high a transgender bathroom decree directing schools to allow transgendered students unrestrained access to restrooms (and locker rooms) of their choice. Last night the Omaha school board voted to approve a sweeping new sex education curriculum that adds gender identity, abortion, and emergency contraception to the list of topics students will learn about. In my opinion, these mandates place a crucial fork-in-the-road before Christian parents, Christian administrators, and Christian teachers.

Broadly speaking, education is a place where Christians have freedom of conscience. Parents are responsible before God to fulfill their God-given duty of training up a child in the way that he should go, and the Bible leaves them free to choose from various means of education. I’m thankful that within Coram Deo Church, we have families pursuing public school, private school, and homeschool options. We also have members who are educators and administrators in schools throughout the city.

However, the massive falsehoods being forced upon us in the area of human sexuality require us to ask some hard questions and to engage in some important debates about education. And that’s easier said than done. Education is an issue that many people have deep convictions about, and emotions run high. But because of the dramatic importance of the spiritual and moral formation of the next generation, I think it’s a conversation we need to wade into as graciously and courageously as possible. I have three questions I wish to put before my readers.

Personally, I believe Christians shouldn't have their kids in the public school system. It's a guaranteed corrupter. Maybe not every school is like that, but most of the time. Not just the education itself, but the other students--most of whom are utterly worldly and corrupt. It takes a mature mind to be able to overcome a bad influence. I also recognize, however, that there are millions of working-class Christians who simply can't afford to home school or, for whatever reason, can't get their kids into a private Christian school.

Pastor Thune mentions the necessity of wise financial stewardship so that Christians can have the freedom to change schools if needed. But that got me thinking: you would think that with all the money flowing into "ministries" like Benny Hinn or Todd Bentley (some of these "pastors" even have their own Heaven-Copters and Heaven-Pads to land on, and they teach in what basically consists of stadiums) that Christians would be able to fund and manage the private schooling needs for every member of their church. Imagine if the SBC, or the Reformed community of churches, got together to raise funds for students to attend private schools or to setup their own free, or affordable private school systems in places like Texas? Maybe that's too difficult a feat, but it's often occurred to me-- reading the scripture-- that the Apostles expected Christians to be able to sustain their own communities and needs. Maybe I'm too naive about costs and other factors, though.

3 comments
:

Too often Christian's (more often than not) retreat into their churches, small groups, bible classes, fellowship halls, community groups, christian schools and abandon the world. I'm all for wisdom, especially with our children, but we're told to be in the world, to go and make disciples, to work and abide until He comes.

I also know way to my private school kids with a sense of entitlement.

I find the church is full of people who think their odds are better of being saved, because of their special gnostic insight on some corner of the gospel, their practice, ritual or legalistic zeal.

Also way to many who want to abandon everyone else, and take care of number one. The preppers, the isolationists and nationalists. (presently I'm living in a beautiful neighborhood, surrounded by one of the highest crime rate areas in the city. the attitude in this community is revolting. such hate and disdain for those outside of our four walls. never a cup of cold water...)

Reminded of Jesus taking His disciples on a field trip to Caesarea Philippi in Matthew 16. Most vile place around, pagan worship, orgies, infanticide. Caesarea Philippi sits at the head waters of the River Jordan. Fertility practices were everywhere. It was thought that satan himself lived in the cave where the river first springs out of the rock mountain face.

Jesus took the campaign to the very gates of hell and said famously "upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it".

This statement was made at what was commonly believed to be the front door of hell itself.

Jesus was not hold up in Trinity Christian Academy in Jerusalem. He was knocking in the front door of hell itself.

Not to diminish the Holy missing of GOD in the flesh, but I'm reminded of the words of Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) "I'm you're huckleberry".

Too often the body of Christ retreats into defense.

This is much of the problem with the church today. Truth comes from God. The moral law comes from God. The church is the mouth peace to speak truth and justice to a world gone crazy. It is the purpose of the government to enforce the law, but not invent the law.

Yet we the church have abdicated welfare, truth and justice, while we hide out and complain about the next election.

I'm not also a commune-ist who wants all Christians to share in an equal distribution of funds to support a segregated education environment. If we would fund education for all church adherents, why not those around us that we are supposed to be trying to bring into the knowledge of truth and the kingdom of God. So then the question is, why are Christians no longer running the schools? We founded them and the hospitals and the medical schools and the nursing homes.

But we've stepped back and out sourced that too.

The message in these last days is:

Can't you see the collapse, the convergence of signs, like the collapse of morality in education?These converging signs, point to the end of the age.Time is Short.Be Ready.Get all your friends ready.Be urgent.Be diligent.Be bold.Don't freak.Don't retreat.There's a war on.Endure to the end.Abide with Him.We need everyone.1 Corinthians 13 - act like men, be strong.

The contributors at Unsealed believe in open and free discourse and in keeping with that belief want to allow readers to comment and share varying and opposing views. However, the nature of freedom is that abusive people take advantage of it to harm others. As Believers we won't turn a blind eye to trolling or abusive behavior. Racist, antisemitic, obscene, spam, or particularly invalidating or goading comments will be deleted without warning and repeated violators will be banned.

Commenting features:

You can add an image to a comment using the shortcode [image width="320" height="266" src="IMAGE URL GOES HERE"/] or you can add a video from YouTube or Dailymotion by replacing "image" with "youtube" or "dailymotion" and inserting the part of the video URL in "src" that is unique to that video (e.g. instead of "youtube.com/watch?v=j1ggdHftS5Q" you would just use "j1ggdHftS5Q"). More shortcodes are available here.

You can paste a nofollow link inside a comment using a standard HREF. Please note that links are heavily moderated and any sales spam, pornographic, or illegal material will be removed immediately and could get you permanently banned from commenting.

You can also use Facebook or Disqus to comment by clicking on either the "Facebook" or "Disqus" tab to the right of "Post A Comment".

A full list of Unicode emojis that can be copied and pasted directly into comments can be found here and here or you can copy and paste one directly from the emojis below.